Projects

The process of aging accelerates in
European societies and becomes one of the greatest social and economic
challenges. Specialists in the field of demographics predict that by 2050 over
a quarter of EU population will be composed of people that are 65+. According
to strategic documentation compiled by the Polish government, in 2011 one in
five Poles and one in four Europeans was older than 60.

The LivingLab project is driven by the
conviction that the elderly are our future. It is therefore of highest
importance to learn how to include this demographic in various activities,
facilitate their participation in modern technology-based world, and ultimately
apply their strengths for the benefit of the society at large. Such an
objective cannot be achieved without a solid knowledge about the psychological
and sociological processes associated with aging, and possible ways of dealing
with them.

The LivingLab is
aimed at people aged 60+ and offers them an online platform composed of two
main modules:

1.E-learning portal that allows for participation in
online courses tailored to the needs and skills of the 60+ demographic.

2.The research
module that utilizes crowdsourcing approach and allows the elderly to perform
tasks that provide data useful for

The
LivingLab team provides a variety of activities addressed to the elderly e.g.
introductory meetings to the platform and consultation. Those activities are
connected with research objective mentioned above. One of our recent endeavors was
focused on the problem social inclusion of the elderly and the problem of
education of the elderly in the field of mobile technologies. We decided to try
tackling these problems by organizing a location based game ‘A stroll around
yesterday’ which combined historical knowledge with the use of tablets and
interaction in mixed-age teams of two (a senior and an IT student). This form
of activity also facilitated the IT students’ understanding of the requirements
that should be taken into account in the process of creating applications for senior
citizens.

Social Participation for improving emotional, mental, and physical
wellbeing in independently living older adults

The combination of longer life expectancy, evolving socio-economical
norms and conditions, and new technologies are dramatically changing life after
retirement, and not always for the better. In more and more countries,
pensioners find themselves with many years in front of them, some of them
likely characterized by reduced physical and cognitive abilities. For older
adults, this span of time out of the workforce was traditionally devoted to the
role (and source of great joy) of caring for grandchildren. However, this role
is fading out because of increased mobility of children, which often live far
away for work, love, or other reasons, leading to an increase of loneliness and
social isolation. This project aims at rethinking long life and understanding
the socio-economical context that can make this period of life more exiting and
attractive.

The specific angle we take is that of enabling older adults of all ages
- and specifically including adults who cannot leave their home or that have
reduced cognitive abilities - to learn, grow, interact, and contribute to
society through ICT. In other words, we aim at enabling adults to be
contributors to societal wellbeing. We generically refer to this group of
abilities as life participation abilities, and we focus on these aspects
because studies tell us that the ability of interacting and feeling useful and
helpful to others is essential to a person’s wellbeing, sometimes more so than
health.

The multi- and inter-disciplinary nature of the project provides the
perfect environment for collaboration and knowledge transfer. As such, it
requires the expertise and perspective that only the consortium as a whole can
provide. The synergies that we build in the project will help not only in the
materialization of the solutions starting from the original problems, challenges
and requirements, but they will also foster the growth of research and
innovation skills of the researchers and institutions involved in the project.

The project is funded within the RISE framework as a part of the Horizon
2020. PJIIT is one of eight partners next to i.e.: Universita Degli Studi di
Trento (Italy), Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale in Medrisio (Switzerland) and
University of New South Wales (Australia).